Vishy Anand will be a long-odds underdog when the Indian challenges Magnus Carlsen in their world title rematch, despite the 44-year-old's achievement this week in winning the candidates without the loss of a game.

Anand finished on 8½/14, a point clear of Sergey Karjakin in second place, but his smooth victory was much assisted by the failure of both his expected main rivals. Vlad Kramnik's game was erratic and the Russian ex-champion was prone to blunders while the world No2 Levon Aronian, who was closest to Anand for much of the event, lost his final two games and finished a dismal seventh out of eight.

Meanwhile Carlsen, who crushed Anand for the world crown only four months ago, issued some slightly patronising video comments on the play where he criticised the defensive fallibility of most of the candidates. The 23-year-old Norwegian offered polite praise for Anand and acknowledged that the Indian veteran, with little to lose and plenty to gain, is sure to be more dynamic and ambitious in the return series than the meek individual who crumbled to defeat in Chennai.

Carlsen, however, still has his own ambition agenda. His real opponents now are the legends Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov, and his task is to show he can dominate chess as much as they did. So he will look for wide margin victories to evoke memories of Fischer in 1971 and of Alexander Alekhine's performances in 1930-31 after winning the title.

The peculiar course of the candidates event magnified Anand's success. Two wins in the first three rounds gave him daylight , while his rivals toiled for consistency. With one round left, the Indian was the only player above 50%.

Karjakin had a poor and winless first half before a more confident finish, but never had a serious chance to score in his marathon 91-mover against Anand in the penultimate round. However, the 24-year-old, now Russia's major hope to regain the crown its grandmasters used to own, can look forward to the next candidates in 2015 or 2016 as part of a new generation, along with Hikaru Nakamura of the US and Fabiano Caruana of Italy.

They are starting to take over from the current candidates, several of whom have been at the top for a long time now.

There were few publishable candidates games, so here instead is the latest from Carlsen, played in the Norwegian league and a rare encounter for the world champion with a journeyman grandmaster.

Carlsen's quiet opening allowed Black the central push d7-d5, and the natural 18...c5 would keep near-equality. Black's ambitious pawn sac 18...b3? aimed to control central light squares,but backfired after Carlsen's 21 d4! ensured knight strongpoints. White then opened up the position for his heavy pieces and transposed into a won ending.